I realize this choice has been extensively discussed, for instance, in #754302 (so, apologies). But as far as I see, those bugs are closed, and I haven't seen the following issue addressed, and it's a major bug for me (and others; see last comment in #680118).

Use case: I am teaching a class that involves live demonstrations using libreoffice.  Consider the following situation: I would like to open the file 'example_data.ods', which is in my home directory.  I open libreoffice, do File > Open.  Say it starts in my home directory, and I start typing 'ex'.  However, the other files that show up when I do that are 'excrutiatingly_embarassing_filename.ohno' and 'extremely_sensitive_filename.whoops'.  As a result, I resolve to never use the file chooser in libreoffice again.

This doesn't apply only to people with erotic filenames (I don't): in a professional setting, it can be embarassing to show, the names of letters of recommendation one is writing, or names of job applications.  A workaround, of course, is to scrupulously remember to *not* start typing in the file > open dialog... but under pressure, giving a presentation, this is difficult.

As for how to resolve this, all I can think of is a preference to disable recursive search, as nautilus has done.  Yes, I know: http://ometer.com/preferences.html , and apologies.